{"id":1640,"date":"2008-04-22T19:39:42","date_gmt":"2008-04-22T23:39:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/?p=1640"},"modified":"2008-04-22T19:39:42","modified_gmt":"2008-04-22T23:39:42","slug":"how-not-to-write","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/?p=1640","title":{"rendered":"How not to write"},"content":{"rendered":"

Now and then Phil gets offers<\/strong> from publishers willing to send us books for review. When he thinks they might be of interest to me, he forwards them. I like this. I like anything that provides me free books.<\/p>\n

I got one recently, from a publisher in England. As a gesture of gratitude for their trouble and generosity in sending the book, I\u2019m not going to review it.<\/p>\n

Because if I did review it, I\u2019d have to give it the lowest grade I\u2019ve ever given a book on this blog. It is amazingly, egregiously awful and amateurish.<\/p>\n

Instead I\u2019m going to write, in generalized terms, about some of the author\u2019s failures. They might be helpful to those of you who are writers, or want to write. <\/p>\n

The first thing that struck me was that the author has no sense of how to do character descriptions.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t object at all to an author describing a character on his\/her first appearance on stage. Not every author does it, but I generally appreciate it. I like to run stories as movies in my head, and it\u2019s nice to know how to cast the movie.<\/p>\n

But this author does his descriptions on a template. The moment each character appears, he stops the action cold in order to run down a sort of checklist of physical characteristics. Height (in feet and inches), general physical build, hair color, eye color, and what sort of accent they speak in. Also what they\u2019re wearing, in excruciating detail. As often as not he makes a judgment, too\u2014\u201cShe looked quite pretty.\u201d \u201cHe looked very handsome.\u201d<\/p>\n

What this author doesn\u2019t seem to understand is that description, like everything else in a book, needs to serve the story. In general, you need more description in proportion to the importance of the character (but this isn\u2019t always true\u2014Earle Stanley Gardner, for instance, never described the continuing Perry Mason characters in more than general terms). And it\u2019s often effective to be vague at the beginning (\u201cSmith presented a large, somewhat intimidating figure\u201d<\/i>) and fill in the details later. And those details don\u2019t have to come directly from you, the author. Another character can say, \u201cYou\u2019re a big one, aren\u2019t you? How tall are you?\u201d<\/i> Or a woman might ask, \u201cHas anyone ever told you you have the sexiest blue eyes in the world?\u201d<\/i> Or you might work Smith\u2019s size in as part of exposition that actually moves the story along (\u201cSmith went to the closet for his coat. It was XXL, specially tailored to accommodate his broad shoulders and the holstered Smith & Wesson he wore under his left arm\u201d<\/i>). That doesn\u2019t just tell you that Smith is big, it also tells you he lives a dangerous life and goes armed.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s a memorable passage. The names have been blanked to protect the talentless:
\n<\/p>\n

C____ had ordered chicken tikka and L_______ had ordered gosth pura which is lamb seasoned with ginger and garlic.<\/p>\n

The waiter left and they started to eat their food.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat\u2019s it like?\u201d asked C_____, referring to Laura\u2019s starter as they ate their food.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s quite nice,\u201d said L_______. \u201cNicely seasoned with ginger and garlic. You should try it one day.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This short passage gives evidence of no thought at all (and probably no revision) on the part of the author. The prose jerks along, and the food (described twice, which is more than any food in a story deserves, unless there’s poison in it) interferes with the scene rather than enhancing it.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s how I\u2019d write it:
\n<\/p>\n

C____ had ordered chicken tikka and L______ had ordered gosth pura.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat\u2019s it like?\u201d asked C_____, pointing at L______\u2019s plate, when the waiter had left.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s quite nice,\u201d said L______. \u201cLamb seasoned with ginger and garlic. You should try it.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

My version dumps the redundancies, and moves faster.<\/p>\n

But I might cut it altogether, depending on where the characters are going. I don\u2019t actually know the answer to that, because I gave up on the book at about that point. However, since it\u2019s been made clear that they\u2019re likely to end up in bed together, some small talk about the pleasure of eating could be conducive to building sexual tension.<\/p>\n

As a final note, I\u2019ll mention that the proofreading was awful. A particular sin was that names often went uncapitalized.<\/p>\n

Sadly, that sort of thing happens even with good books\u2014and good publishers\u2014far too often nowadays.
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Now and then Phil gets offers from publishers willing to send us books for review. When he thinks they might be of interest to me, he forwards them. I like this. I like anything that provides me free books. I got one recently, from a publisher in England. As a gesture of gratitude for their … Continue reading How not to write<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[13,17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1640","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reading","category-writing"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1640","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1640"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1640\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1640"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1640"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1640"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}